It took us a while to get to Maine

Where to begin? When we last posted (way back in May…holy cow!), we had just acquired our new RV, the Sandpiper (Sandy for short). The rest of May and June were spent getting it set up the way we wanted.

Sandy parked in our New Mexico driveway, just begging to get out on the road.

For starters, we had to unload the Blue Flame and put all our RV belongings in Sandy. An RV is much like a house, things accumulate. After 10 years, LOTS OF THINGS had accumulated in the Blue Flame. It took us weeks to unload, sort and purge. FYI…the Blue Flame is for sale if anyone is interested. https://blueflame.cjsquare.com/

We also got our solar panels and lithium batteries installed on Sandy. We found Superstition Solar in Phoenix and the owner, Dylan, was willing to come to us and work in our shaded garage. It beats working outside in the sun in Phoenix in June! After a full week of Dylan working hard, we now have an awesome solar panel system. We have enough juice to run our residential fridge all night and then some. We are all set for some major boondocking. FYI…for our RVing friends, Dylan used to work for AM Solar in Oregon, he’s excellent.

We now have eight, 200W solar panels on the roof of Sandy.

Dylan put together an Instgram reel of our install. Use this link if you want to see it. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8tQLxlummb


In late June we took off with our destination being the Northeastern United States. We visited family and friends in Indiana and made a stop at the Showhauler factory, also in Indiana. We had some windows that needed to be replaced (reference the broken window brackets mentioned in our last blog post), plus we found a whole list of items that needed to be repaired or fixed. We left Sandy with Showhauler and headed up to Michigan (more family and friends) to wait for the repairs to be done.

Sandy visiting her birthplace….Showhauler in Middlebury, Indiana.

Once the repairs were finished, we retrieved Sandy and were off to Rochester to see Callie and friends. And this is where things went off the rails. To make a very, very long story short, upon arriving in Rochester, Jim ended up in the hospital (including 24 hours in the ICU) for three days for a pulmonary embolism and blood clots in his right leg (can you say DVT?). I’ll spare you all the details…that would take pages and pages and pages. Reach out to us if you really want to hear the details, but let me just say Jim is mostly fine now and on a blood thinner (an expensive miracle drug, but so worth it).

If you have to get sick while on the road, do it in the town you just moved from. We had Callie just a few miles away plus numerous friends we could call upon to help us out if we needed it. And at times we did!

While waiting for Jim to get better, I hauled my sewing machine over to Callie’s one day and made use of her living room floor to piece this quilt top. Her washer and dryer also got a lot of use. Thank you Callie!

Our apologies to those of you in Rochester that we didn’t get around to seeing. At first, we were laying low so Jim could recover. The last few weeks were full of doctor’s appointments. There was just not enough time to see everyone.

We had parked in our friend Mary Ellen’s driveway thinking we would only be there for a week or so.

Sandy in Mary Ellen’s driveway…blocking her view from her back porch.
We got a lot of porch time in! It was nice to catch up. Thanks Mary Ellen!

After four weeks in Mary Ellen’s driveway, we got the doctor’s permission to continue on. Now when we travel, there will be more frequent stops to get out and walk…doctor’s orders.

Our plan when we left New Mexico was to eventually make it to the Canadian Maritimes via Maine. We decided Canada was not happening with Jim’s health issues; we were best staying the USA. But Maine was still on the table. After all, that is where Janelle lives!

We stopped at a Harvest Host along the way to Maine. It was a working farm where we had a view of moos!

Portland, Maine

Janelle has been in Maine since early February. In that time, she’s acquired a lot of knowledge about the area and was happy to share the sights with us. We managed to find a camping site for a week not too far from her apartment. So it was a week of family time!

Janelle took me to her office at the University of Southern Maine. USM is the hosting organization for her employer, the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership.

We did the obligatory tour of the coastline around Portland.

Portland Head Lighthouse
At Bug Light Park, there is a memorial honoring the people who made Liberty Ships during World War II. Jim’s Dad served on a Liberty Ship, so this memorial had special meaning for us.
A lot of Janelle’s work revolves around Eel Grass. The eel grass beds are disappearing and they are trying to figure out why. Janelle managed to find us a sample of eel grass on the shoreline near one of her field sites.

Lovell, Maine

Our next destination was to mooch-dock at our good friends Paul and Kay’s house. They live a little over an hour northwest of Portland. We first met them at an RV Rally in Chandler, Arizona in March of 2017. They were parked next to us at that rally and we hit it off! We’ve met up with them here and there multiple times since 2017. They are no longer full time RVers and have since built a house that just happens to have full RV hookups alongside their driveway. Jim and Paul got some wood shop time in and I got a headboard for the bed in the RV. Unfortunately, Kay had to work, so we didn’t get to see much of her other than for a quick cup of coffee in the mornings.

Paul and Kay’s house in the woods. Janelle came up and joined us on the weekend.
Janelle and me checking out the beach at the local lake. We were wishing we had swimsuits with us, the water was that warm.
Another day, Jim and I took a walk in the morning. Fog makes for some beautiful pictures! FYI…Jim has been taking lots of walks to regain his stamina. It’s working!

Thank you Paul and Kay for letting us stay with you for a while. You know we will reciprocate when you make it New Mexico.

After a week of staying with Paul and Kay, we are now in Bethel, Maine. It’s the Friday of the long Labor Day weekend and we are watching all the weekend-warriors pull in. Janelle is going to join us for the long weekend, so we will have to see what kind of trouble we can get in to here.

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